Buncombe County
Submitted:
June 26, 2019
|
Updated:
October 1, 2019

Request for Buncombe Sheriff Vehicle Assignment / Expenses info

Hello!

We would like to request the following information from the Buncombe County Sheriff's Office, specifically concerning Sheriff Miller's assigned county vehicle:

1. How many vehicles has Sheriff Miller been assigned or driven regularly since taking office?
2. Please detail the year/model of each vehicle and approximate mileage when issued/returned.
3. What was the cost for the aftermarket wheels and tires that replaced the stock wheels and tires on Sheriff Miller's current assigned new SUV?
4. Why were new custom wheels/tires needed to replace the stock ones on a brand new vehicle?
5. Please submit any emails and/or text messages between Sheriff Miller and any other person related to the purchase, ordering, or outfitting of any vehicles assigned or previously assigned to Sheriff Miller.

Thank you for your timely response.

[Editor's Note: The sender of this request indicated in the "Start Date / End Date" section of the form on our site that timeline for this information should include November 06, 2018 - June 25, 2019.]

Editor’s Note:Sunshine Request makes no claim as to the veracity of any statements or information contained in any of the requests, or public records, we receive.

As you know, we mentioned that we had received a follow up request related to the above request (Request for Buncombe Sheriff Vehicle Assignment / Expenses info) which we were waiting to submit after all vehicle related requests had been completed. As we are a very small team, this was just easiest for us process wise.

The above request has now been “re-opened” on our site, as we have received a follow up request related to the above. It seems like you may have answered this in some form during the course of processing the vehicle requests. However, could you please restate the response so it is clear? Here are the details we received:

Message: “Good Afternoon,

In reply to a previous request, Mr Sarver stated:

“the tires on Sheriff’s Office vehicles are swapped out seasonally, so the tires on the Sheriff’s vehicle and all other patrol vehicles will not be the same tires they have during the winter months.”

Would you please make a request of the Buncombe county garage for the maintenance records of all sheriffs office vehicles showing where the tires were “swapped out seasonally”. Records of this tire swap from 2018/2019 Winter to Spring would be sufficient.

Also, Would the Sheriffs Office please explain the necessity/justification of the purchase (over $1000) or aftermarket wheels/tires for Sheriff Miller’s newest county vehicle? It appears that question was overlooked in the last response.

Finally, was that purchase (aftermarket wheels/tires) made with drug seizure money or did the taxpayers of Buncombe County fund that purchase?

Once thing that might be a bit confusing is that one of the emails didn’t have a subject line. I have titled that PDF file – “Untitled, Blank email.” All other PDF files are named consistent with the subject line of the email.

I have also included the image and PDF that were attached to emails as separate files.

This should complete this request in full, but please let me know if I missed anything.

Checking in on this request again. If you could please give us an update on when you think this request will be completed that would be greatly appreciated and we will hold off on following up again until the time you specify.

We recently received a follow up request related to this same topic. But, to avoid any confusion, we are holding off on sending that in until this request is completed. If you could please give us an update on when you think this request will be completed that would be greatly appreciated and we will hold off on following up again until the time you specify.

Sheriff Miller has driven a total of two vehicles issued by the county since taking office on December 3, 2018. The first vehicle was a 2018 Ford Explorer and he now drives a 2019 Chevy Tahoe. The Tahoe has 3,614 miles on it as of 7/5/19 and had less than 100 miles on it when he started driving it.

The cost of the “aftermarket wheels and tires” on the Tahoe was $1,084.34.

Sheriff Miller drives a 2019 Chevy Tahoe, the cost of the vehicle is $37,279.00. The “total outfitted cost” which includes all the standard equipment – police lights, patrol radio, tags, etc. is $48,852.67.

​An additional detail beyond what was asked in the request that might be of interest – the tires on Sheriff’s Office vehicles are swapped out seasonally, so the tires on the Sheriff’s vehicle and all other patrol vehicles will not be the same tires they have during the winter months.

The request for email and texts usually takes a little bit for County IT to process, but I wanted to go ahead and send over the info that I had in the meantime instead of waiting. I understand this request may not be marked complete until I hear back on that.

We’ve received a request via www.sunshinerequest.com for information that may be available in your office. If you could please give us a rough estimate of when you think this request will be completed we can plan on following up again around that time.

We would like to request the following information from the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office, specifically concerning Sheriff Miller’s assigned county vehicle:

1. How many vehicles has Sheriff Miller been assigned or driven regularly since taking office?
2. Please detail the year/model of each vehicle and approximate mileage when issued/returned.
3. What was the cost for the aftermarket wheels and tires that replaced the stock wheels and tires on Sheriff Miller’s current assigned new SUV?
4. Why were new custom wheels/tires needed to replace the stock ones on a brand new vehicle?
5. Please submit any emails and/or text messages between Sheriff Miller and any other person related to the purchase, ordering, or outfitting of any vehicles assigned or previously assigned to Sheriff Miller.

Thank you for your timely response.”

Editor’s Note: The sender of this request indicated in the “Start Date / End Date” section of the form on our site that timeline for this information should include November 06, 2018 – June 25, 2019.

Sunshine Request makes no claim as to the veracity of any statements or information contained in any of the requests, or public records, we receive.

Thank you for your assistance!
Sunshine Request

Status:
Sent to Government

June 26, 2019 10:33 am

11 months ago

Submitted to Sunshine Request

Status:
Pending

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